New Free Sound Library: Courthouse Crowds Sound FX

Today Airborne Sound has released a new sound clip collection: Courthouse Crowds. It features sounds of people in courtrooms, halls, and legal chambers.

The Sounds of Justice

The collection includes a variety of crowds in different courthouse locations.

There are busy crowds chatting while they wait for courts to be in session. There is shop talk between legal pros. You’ll listen to bustling movement and discussions while courts are in recess. You can overhear specialized conversations outside of public defender offices, or clerks muttering on their way to work.

Also included are a variety of hallway tracks. Some contain sparse footsteps passing by or distant activity. Others feature lighter conversations at a spread of distances. These tracks can easily match other, non-courthouse locations.

Also included are crowd presence tracks with people whispering and wooden seat creaks.

Note: all tracks have been smoothly edited to omit sensitive personal information in order to protect the privacy of those appearing in court.

Sounds Crafted by Architecture

Toronto Old City Hall Courthouse

Recordings from the Romanesque Revival-style Old City Hall courthouse provide conversations and footsteps across vast marble entranceways and long corridors, shaping airy and reverberant tracks. The upper floors of this majestic building are wood, so you’ll hear creaking passes by and the distant, echoey slams of 1930’s-era glass and wood doors. Crowds here are spread out and convey a large sense of space.

Toronto College Park Courthouse

By contrast, Toronto’s art deco-style College Park courthouse is tighter, with smaller rooms and narrower halls. This allows the crowds to fill out the space, giving them a larger, busier feeling than they actually are.

Showcasing Two Kits

These field recordings are the result of testing two recent gear acquisitions: a Sony PCM-D100 and DPA 4060 microphones matched with a Sound Devices recorder. What better way to test recording incognito than to capture courthouse crowds?

The D100’s diminutive size was perfect for the busy and conspicuous College Park hallways. It also captured the courtroom conversations. These chambers are small and quiet. These subtle tracks are ideally suited for sitting beneath other tracks.

Sony PCM-D100

DPA 4060

The DPA 4060s were put to work at Old City Hall in a strict A/B stereo arrangement. For such small microphones, they captured the space with a full sound.

Four Flavours of Sound FX

Like all free offerings here on Airborne Sound, this sound library is offered in three flavours:

Loop-Ready Sound FX

I also thought I would try something a bit different with this package. I often hear from sound editors who wish they had an easy way to fit ambiences into their film and TV scenes. After all, not all atmospheres are as long as the scenes in these projects, and require editing to fit.

So, as an option, also available are loopable versions of the tracks. These were crafted to repeat seamlessly end-to-end. Simply duplicate the region to create an smooth, endless ambience without pops or jarring, repetitive distractions.

The original file

Duplicate a clip to create a loop

A perfectly looped ambience

These tracks were delicately re-edited to remove prominent features from the full tracks (e.g., door slams, vocal pop-outs) so the loopable beds will sit nicely behind your main tracks.

Clips repeat at a seamless end point without pops or clicks

The loop-ready version includes all 20 original Pro files plus 16 loopable clips for $0.99.

Don’t have the cash? Don’t want to spend?

No worries. Download the freebie pack instead. The free Pro version includes standard versions of each of the loopable tracks.